Through the Years: Harry and Hermione
by InLoveWithLaughing
Summary: For justaclassicgirl. Second in the ThroughtheYears!verse, this time following Harry and Hermione as they raise their daughter. COMPLETE


Description: For Justaclassicgirl. Follows Hermione and Harry as they raise their daughter.

Rating: T for language and sort of underage drinking.

_Disclaimer: Finally something is mine! Eve, Sarah, Moe, Petunia and all the pets are creations of my imagination. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to earn the rights to the rest. They all still belong to Rowling. And obviously I don't own photoshop. I don't even know how to use it._

_AN: __The part in this about Harry editing a photo for Eve wasn't my idea. I saw a post on tumblr about a woman who did that for her daughter and thought it was amazing, and so when the idea of including it in this came up I just couldn't resist. I__n case it isn't obvious, Harry is a Healer. I'm not sure what Hermione is, maybe the Wizarding equivalent of a scientist? And yes, this is a kid!fic and I still got some femmeslash squeezed in. Deal with it._

_For justaclassicgirl, who I love because she's been so patient with me even though this took me _ages _to write and she never gets mad when I take a long time to answer PMs._

* * *

Through the Years: Harry and Hermione

The night Eve is born is the scariest of Harry's life. Standing there in the too-white, too-clean, too-bright corridor, he'd gladly face a dozen Voldemorts if it meant he didn't have to be here. People pass by occasionally, nurses smiling tiredly at him or ignoring him, patients giving him that look that everyone has in hospitals while they try to figure out what's wrong with you. One young woman offers him a cup of coffee. Five minutes later he doesn't remember what he said to her, only that she left pretty quickly. Other than that he's left alone.

He's been out here for over three hours. Over three hours since Hermione woke him up clutching her stomach and told him there was something wrong. Over two hours since he saw the blood, too much blood for ordinary labour, streaming down her thighs as a midwife hustled him out the room. Over an hour since a Healer told him soberly that they were doing everything they could. "Not enough," he'd shouted, trying desperately to push his way back into the room, towards his wife and his daughter.

The door in front of him opens and he leaps forwards, clutching desperately at the pale green robes of that same Healer. The man's blonde hair is plastered to his face with sweat and his eyes are tired, but his mouth is turned up in a small, triumphant smile. Harry staggers back a bit as relief crashes over him.

"They're both okay, Mr Potter. But-"

Harry's through the door before he finishes speaking. Hermione's lying back in the now clean bed, the wrinkled, red creature in her arms making her seem even more pale and haggard than she is. But she glows. She looks up as he enters and his eyes meet hers. She smiles, warm and gentle and a little bit apologetic. He glances down as his knees bump into the bed and accidentally gets a glimpse of the tiny face they've done all this for.

Later, when the memory is blurry and incomplete, Harry will remember thinking only one thing. _Worth it_.

OoO

Two weeks later the three of them are starting to get used to each other. They've worked out a routine, dealt with Hermione's infertility by skilfully avoiding the subject and Harry's managed to get a few extra weeks off work. They've got everything they need, except a name.

The list they'd put so much thought and care into keeps its place on the front of the fridge, as if one morning they'll look at it and suddenly one of the names will just _fit_. They never do. None of them, not Lily, Rose, Riley or Jean, are right for the perfect little angel, or devil depending when you ask, asleep upstairs.

Hermione sits tucked into Harry's side on the sofa, both of them taking the brief moment of peace to watch some mind-numbing TV and eat for the first time today. The toast disappears quickly, and neither of them can be bothered to go make some more.

"We can't keep calling her Baby," Hermione says during an advert break.

"I know," Harry says.

They watch as four-year-olds demonstrate their French speaking skills, all thanks to this new, amazing DVD that can be bought online for only £30.99.

"That's not how you pronounce _Bonjour_. And I still like Lily," Hermione says.

"Really? I thought it was bon-gor. I like Lily too, but it doesn't feel right."

"No." Harry wonders which part she's addressing. "Okay, what about Eve."

"Eve," he repeats, testing out the sound of it. "Eve. _Eve_. C'mere, Eve."

"She's not a dog, Harry."

"Eve. I like that. Why haven't you mentioned it before?"

"Only just thought of it."

"Well, how about we trial it? Call her Eve for a while, and if it doesn't work, try something else."

"Okay."

Sometime in the next few weeks, the list is thrown in the bin, and Eve becomes permanent.

OoO

She doesn't speak for the first three years. They take her to all sorts of doctors, both magical and Muggle, but all of them say the same thing: "There's nothing wrong with her. She'll speak when she's ready."

On his thirty-first birthday she finally says just one word. _No_. Harry laughs. Picks her up and whirls her around in the air. Her shrieks of laughter are the only thing in the world more beautiful than her voice.

OoO

On her first day of Primary School, Harry is trying to take a picture of a squirming Eve in her new uniform. She tugs at the polo shirt and bats at the loosening plaits Harry managed to force her wayward hair into this morning. Sometimes he wonders if it would be more humane to just cut it off. Then again, that had never helped his hair.

"Stay still, Eve," he says again, lowering the camera. "Mummy wants a photo of you and the quicker you stop moving the quicker I can take it."

Eve's lips thin and her dark eyebrows draw together. She looks so like Hermione for a second that Harry actually starts. Up until this point he'd only been able to himself in the small child. His messy black hair, his green eyes and his pale skin. Looking at her now, he can't believe he never saw the stubbornness he thought only his wife possessed.

_Click._

Hermione is annoyed Eve isn't smiling in the photo. When she's old enough to become self-conscious, Eve often demands they remove it from the windowsill. Harry thinks it's his favourite photo.

OoO

When she's seven years old, Eve spends her first night away from home. She goes to stay the night with Petunia, and even though Harry now trusts Dudley and he's always trusted Cho, he can't help but worry. Hermione's worried too, and so they sit on the sofa and worry together.

At seven o'clock they get a phone call from Dudley saying both girls are safe and sound asleep, and they finally relax. Decide to take advantage of having the house to themselves for once.

They lie tangled in the middle of the carpet, sweaty and breathless. Harry presses soft, adoring kisses to Hermione's shoulder and neck, whispering words he doesn't remember later. When they pull themselves up and to bed, they're content and sleepy. Harry slides beneath the covers and wraps an arm around her waist, eyes already half-shut, but then she says something that makes him freeze.

"I want another baby."

It's something they've never really discussed. At first they'd both been so limp with relief, so high with the joy and exhaustion of early parenthood, that it hadn't mattered. Had been pushed away and buried under other, more important thoughts. But it had slowly dawned on Harry that this was it. The family, the one they'd created in their heads with so many children, had gradually crumbled to dust. It still hurt like hell, but he'd accepted it long ago. He'd thought Hermione had too.

And yet her words don't surprise him. He sees the other parents at school, sees Ron and Luna with their boys, Ginny and Neville with Trevor and Imogen, and he _wants_ so badly. It makes sense she does too.

"So do I. But the Healer said-"

"He said _probably_." All the hope that one word holds. "He said we _probably_won't be able to have more children naturally. We can still try. And if that doesn't work we can, I don't know, adopt or something."

There's so much he wants to say. _Yes. I want to try. I want to be able to give you this. I want this to be possible for us. I love you. I love Eve. I love what we have. But it's not enough. Yes._

The words stick in his throat and all that comes is, "Okay."

OoO

When Eve comes home crying after her first day of Year 5, Harry doesn't know what to do. He finally does the only thing he can think of; he provides hot chocolate and biscuits. It's clearly not the right thing because Eve takes one look at him, screams, "You're trying to make me _fat_!" and runs to her room.

Once again, Harry is struck dumb. If only Hermione were here, or even Dudley, who somehow manages to understand his own daughter's whims and emotions and so might understand Eve's too. But Hermione's researching a something-or-other in India and Dudley won't get off work for two hours.

For a moment Harry entertains the idea of calling Ginny for help, but then catches sight of a picture of himself, Hermione and Ron just a few weeks after The Battle of Hogwarts, worn-out, tired but triumphant. He killed the bloody Dark Lord. He can figure out what's wrong with his own daughter. And so he squares his shoulders, pulls together the courage that allows him to make the call as to when surgery is needed and when to stop resuscitation, and makes his way up to Eve's room.

She's not curled up in bed as he expects, but in the middle of the floor, puffing as she does sit-up after sit-up. She doesn't stop when he enters the room. Doesn't even look at him. More tears trail down her cheeks. Harry hovers for a moment, before closing the door tightly behind him and sitting down in front of her, legs crossed, leaning back on his hands slightly.

"Eve. Eve, sweetheart, can you stop for a second, please?"

"No."

No explanation. Just no.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm fat, daddy. And I have to get thin. And- And-" Her voice wobbles. More tears.

"Who told you that?"

"Ev- Evan. Evan and Tom."

Evan and Tom. Harry vaguely recalls two boys, one dark and one blonde, who had come to Eve's birthday party last year. They'd seemed nice enough, a little boisterous, but what kid wasn't? Harry didn't think they were bad kids really, but he knew better than most that children could be cruel. And the arseholes hurt his little girl. Bastards.

"Stop that and look at me Eve. _Eve_." She sits up reluctantly, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. "You are _not_ fat. You're perfect."

"You have to say that," she mumbles.

"I mean it. What's going to change if you lose weight?" he adds when she continues to look miserable.

She hesitates, then points at a poster on the wall. It's a picture of the slim female chaser on the Chudley Cannons. "I want to look like that."

Harry has to fight back a groan. He'd heard of this, of course. Other parents ranting about models setting bad examples, that the children didn't understand that those photos aren't _real_. He's struck with a sudden inspiration.

"Come with me," he says, getting up and offering a hand.

Eve takes it and follows him to the study curiously, still sniffling and wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. Harry offers her a tissue as he waits for Photoshop to load. He's not good at this, Hermione is the computer expert, but he can manage a tiny bit of editing here and there. It really is as easy as he's going to tell Eve it is.

He makes sure she's watching as he pulls up an old picture of Ginny and begins to change bits. He makes her thighs slimmer, removes all blemishes and shininess from her skin, brightens her eyes and all together makes her look like one of the women in the magazines. Eve watches, first with fascination, then with growing horror as her favourite Aunt turns into somebody she doesn't recognise.

When he's finished Harry prints the picture off along with the original and gives them to Eve. At dinner he watches as Eve enthusiastically finishes of her pizza and asks for seconds with a sense of having avoided a bomb.

OoO

Hermione and Harry sit on opposite ends of the sofa. The quiet is heavy with unspoken words, the air thick with tension. Hermione pushes a wayward curl out of her eyes. Harry shifts, uncrossing and crossing his legs. The sun pushes its way through thick clouds and he hears Eve and Petunia's shrieks of delight as they take off on their broomsticks again.

"Maybe we should stop trying," he says finally.

"_No_."

Harry blows out slowly through his nostrils and focuses on the picture of Hermione and baby Eve in the hospital. Hermione is radiant and smiling, Eve is small and wrinkled and vulnerable.

"Hermione, I want another child too," he says. "But this isn't working. It's been a year. You said adoption-"

"I didn't think we'd need it," she snaps.

Harry can't bear the space between then, so taught with guilt and reckless, dying hope. He shuffles until they're thighs are pressed together, wraps an arms around her shoulders and buries his face in her neck.

There's a moment of silent in which Hermione goes stiff and he knows she's thinking about pulling away. Then she relaxes. Drags a hand through his hair and puts the other on his knee. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

"It's not your fault."

"Yes it is. I'm- I'm the one-"

"It's _not _your fault."

She swallows and presses a kiss to his forehead. "We could keep trying and- and maybe just look into adoption."

"Yeah-"

The front door bangs open and they both jump up, wands out. It's just Eve, face red and eyes full of tears, followed closely by Petunia, who looks slightly green. Harry sees why a moment later. Cupped in Eve's outstretched hands is something tiny and bloody and very, very dead, its guts only held in by Eve's small white fingers. After a moment Harry realises it's a bird.

Hermione recoils with disgust. "Eve, take that outside right now."

"But- But mummy, it's _dying_. You have to save it."

Harry feels his heart break a little as those earnest eyes meet his own, not a doubt in them that he can do anything. He has to swallow a few times before he can speak without his voice shaking. "It's already dead, sweetheart. There's nothing we can do."

Eve stares at him, dumbfounded.

"Harry's right, Evie. Go put it outside," Hermione says, more gentle now, though she looks no better than Petunia.

It takes Eve a few moments and a slight nudge from Harry before she slowly goes back outside, dragging her feet and sniffling. She looks up at Harry when she's being tucked in that night with a something new in her eyes. Very gravely she says, "Daddy, when I'm grownup, I'm going to save _all _the animals."

Harry hugs her tight and says he's sure she will. He hopes to God she never works out that that's impossible.

OoO

From that day on the animals being to appear. Slowly at first, a blackbird with a broken wing that stays around after Harry has healed it, an old cat that is crawling with fleas until Hermione can't stand it anymore and just washes the damn thing already. Dog food is added to the weekly shopping list because Eve just _couldn't _leave such a small, helpless puppy alone (alone, _right_), and _it's not her fault _if the farmer doesn't want it back now that they've pampered it so it won't work. The two goldfish become four, then eight, then on her eleventh birthday Eve realises she's got an aquarium, which is much more exciting than a Hogwarts letter.

Hagrid stops buy more often, leaving runts for her to nurse for a few weeks and once a pig that hurt its trotter. Harry threatens to make it into bacon so many times in that first week that Eve takes to keeping him in her room. In retrospect, Harry thinks should have realised that this would only further increase her attachment to it. Four weeks later Nigel officially becomes part of the family after he trips Harry up, causing him a broken wrist and Petunia to start saying "ShitBuggerFucking_Hell_" at the end of each sentence. Dudley is not impressed.

OoO

Eve had gotten through the terrible twos with minimal difficulty, smiled her way through seven, eight and nine, so really Harry thinks it's a sort of karma that the moment she hits fourteen she becomes somebody he barely recognises. She comes home for the summer holidays three inches taller than she should be, with slightly greasy hair and rough skin between her eyes where concealer has been so carefully applied. The drive home from the station is full of the usual cheerful recount of the past term, with only a little more eye rolling than normal. When they get home, she hugs and kisses her animals like always. As she leans down she flips her hair to the side (and when was that blue streak added?) and something silver glints in the sun.

"Are your ears pierced?"

Eve turns and fixes Harry with her "Duh. God, Dad." Expression.

"When did that happen?" he says cautiously, not sure how he's supposed to react.

"I got it done in Hogsmeade," Eve mutters, picking up Leo the cat and beginning to make her way upstairs.

"Wait a second. I thought you need parental permission to get your ears pierced."

"Your signature's not hard to forge, Dad."

This signals the start of one of their worst arguments ever. Years later Harry still cringes at some of the things he'd shouted, and the things she'd screamed in reply. When it's over and Eve is sulking in her room, Harry thinks over the whole day and it surprises him that the argument started with such a small thing. But in the years following he learns that most arguments with Eve do.

OoO

Eve still collects animals (it really can't be called anything except collecting now), but as she enters her fifteenth year of life she develops so many interests that Harry finds it hard to keep up. She plays on the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team (and Harry gloats to Ron that it's because of her they're winning all their matches), she joins the Gobstones Club and the Duelling Club, but above everything else, Eve loves to cook. It's kind of a shame she's so bad at it.

She comes home for the Christmas holidays (she's got a nose ring and the blue streak has multiplied, causing George to make more than one _Smurf _joke), bubbling with enthusiasm and telling Harry all about the different meals the House Elves have taught her. Harry allows her to take control of the kitchen that night and goes to finish off some paperwork that needs to be sent off ASAP. Hermione is nervously going through it, trying to ascertain how they're going to appear to the adoption agency. He gets distracted and forgets to check on Eve.

Two hours later the three of them are stood shivering in the yard, watching as firefighters save their kitchen. It's only a small fire and doesn't end up costing them anything much, but Hermione is furious. Eve's excuse that she "just forgot and why can't you just _chill_" probably doesn't help. Tears are running down her face by the time Hermione has finished yelling. Soft hiccups-slash-sobs are the only sound.

"I'm sorry, Evie," Hermione says almost immediately, pulling Eve close and resting her chin on her dark head.

"I only wanted to make you guys a nice dinner," Eve mumbles.

"You can try again tomorrow," Hermione says. "I'll supervise."

"I'm not going to give up," Eve says.

When she's twenty, Harry goes round for dinner at her flat and is served takeout. Eve's rueful expression and the smell of burnt chicken tells him all he needs to know, and they both laugh heartily.

OoO

"Stop fidgeting, Harry," Hermione hisses, "People are staring."

"People always stare," Harry mutters.

Hermione doesn't answer and Harry stops fidgeting. They're sitting in the Great Hall surround by other parents, waiting for the concert to start. Harry looks down at his program and can't help grinning proudly. _Eve Potter-Granger: Voice_ is typed in neat lettering right at the top of the page.

He hadn't even realised she'd joined the choir until they got a notice about the concert, telling them she'd been picked for a solo. He's been telling everyone who would listen since, but now it's here he feels almost nervous. He knows Eve won't make a mistake, that she'll be brilliant, but still his stomach twists when she walks onto the stage. The blue streaks have gone, along with the rest of her hair.

"Does she have a pixie cut?" Hermione says quietly.

Harry's too busy waving at Eve to answer. Only when she glares at him and motions for him to stop does Harry realise how silly he looks, but the other parents chuckle good-naturedly and Hermione rolls her eyes and slides her hand into his.

Afterwards they wait for Eve in the corridor outside the hall. She lingers long after nearly everyone has gone, as always, and Harry gets caught up in a conversation with Moe.

"I'm glad Eve has such a responsible friend," he says, referring to Moe's daughter and Eve's tutor-turned-best-friend.

"I'm glad Sarah is finally having some fun. Eve's a great kid. Full of spunk," Moe says.

"That's one way to describe her," Harry says and they both laugh. "They seem good for each other; I don't think Eve has ever had the sort of marks she got this term. Mainly E's, a couple of A's and an _O_." Harry knows he's bragging and that it's sort of pointless since, according to Eve, Sarah gets straight O's every term, but he can't help himself.

Moe laughs again and starts to say something when they're interrupted by the very girls they were talking about.

"Daddy!" Sarah flings herself at Moe and hugs him tightly.

Eve smiles at Harry and allows him to ruffle her hair. "Where's mum?"

"Talking to Luna about something, I think. She'll be here in a sec. You were really great tonight, Evie. Best performance, and I'm not just saying that because I'm your Dad."

"Yeah, you were," Sarah says, turning to them. "You could be, like, a singer when you're older."

This gets a huge smile out of Eve, the biggest Harry's seen in a long time.

OoO

On day in the summer before her seventh year, Eve tells Harry she's going to stay the night at Petunia's. Harry's glad; Eve has made some new friends recently and he hasn't seen Petunia for a while. About an hour after Eve leaves, Petunia calls, asking if Eve would like to come out and see a film with her.

At two in the morning, Hermione and Harry are in a panic. Eve hasn't replied to any of their increasingly worried texts and won't pick up her phone. They've contacted everyone they can think of, from Ginny to Draco Malfoy, whose son Eve dated for a while when she was fifteen. Nobody has heard anything. They all promise to call if they do. Harry's about five minutes away from calling the Aurors when he hears the small bell indicating people are coming through the floo in the sitting room.

He's there just in time to see Sarah stumble out of the fire, her arm wrapped around Eve's waist. Supporting her, Harry realises. All thoughts of punishment are gone in a moment and he rushes forward with a worried cry. Eve lifts her head and slurs, "Hey, dad," before vomiting all over the carpet.

Hermione takes their intoxicated daughter upstairs to clean up and Harry is left to hear Sarah's explanation. They sit in the kitchen, sipping tea as though they can't hear Eve throwing up again right above their heads.

"She called me from the police station," Sarah tells him. "A few of her friends were taking something-"

"What-"

"Don't worry; I'm pretty sure she was only drinking. But the police thought she was underage, it's 18 for muggles, and took her in. She convinced them she was 19 and called me. I brought her straight back here."

Harry doesn't trust himself to speak, afraid if he does his fury will bubble over and he'll end up breaking something. His expression must say enough though, because Sarah leans forward and covers his hand with her own. It's small and warm and comforting.

"I don't think she means to do stuff like this," she says softly. "It's hard for her is all, and, like, she can't talk about it to anyone but me 'cause you and Mrs Potter would get upset if you knew."

"Knew what?" Harry says, tracing the pattern of the wood on the table, unable to meet her eyes.

"How hard it is for her. With all due respect, Mr Potter, you and Mrs Potter, you're not- you're not exactly _normal_. You saved the world when you were seventeen, and Mrs Potter is called the brightest witch of the century. Everyone knows she's gonna be Minister for Magic this time next year, and you're getting that promotion at the hospital. Everyone thinks Eve's gonna to be great, and she _could_ be. If they just left her alone. Eve's smart, she just doesn't try at school because she doesn't think she'll ever live up to everyone's expectations. And she's definitely determined enough. You know she still bakes me a birthday cake every year, even though they always burn? She never gives up."

There's a note of warmth in Sarah's voice that makes Harry look up. Dark eyes look back at him, full of- Harry smiles softly and wonders when his daughter's best friend fell in love with her. Then he looks down again, sighing heavily.

"I understand that, Sarah, and I'll talk to Eve about it, but it's no excuse to go out and get drunk and get bloody _arrested_." He runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. "You can stay here for the night, if you want. You know where the spare room is if you don't want to share with Eve."

"No," Sarah says, getting up and pulling on her jacket. Harry notices absently that she's wearing pyjamas. "I've got to get home, my dad'll be worried."

"Bet he doesn't think Eve is such a good influence now," Harry says, mainly to himself.

"Nah, not really. But he likes Eve. Nobody can help but like her, for all the trouble she causes."

There's a truth in these words that makes Harry smile again. Eve'll be alright, he tells Hermione later, there's a lot to be said for charisma. Hermione glares at him and tells him that Eve won't get anywhere if she doesn't start trying. Harry goes to sleep feeling that all is right in the world.

OoO

That night seems to be a sort of turning point for Eve and she graduates with, maybe not the highest marks, but good enough that Hermione goes out a buys her a snake to take to the apartment she's sharing with Sarah. Sarah has taken an interest in Healing, and Harry meets often with her to discuss it. He's enjoying getting to know his daughter's possibly-might-be-a-girlfriend better (Eve hasn't technically told them yet, but he and Hermione both know it's only a matter of time). Eve hasn't got a solid idea of what she wants to do and so has taken a job in George's shop, hoping to earn enough money to pay back Harry and Hermione for the apartment and then go travelling for a while. Harry's worried about her, but no more than usual.

OoO

Two weeks after she moves out, there's a new arrival. A tiny baby, smaller than even Eve was, claims her old room. He doesn't have a name yet, but there's no list this time. In Hermione words, "We'll both regret it if we hurry. Let's take our time with this one."

It's autumn, and everything is dying. Orange leaves drift from the trees and become crinkled and brown on the ground. The flowers in the garden are wilting, their heads drooping down and rain drops falling off them like tears. As Harry sits by the window and looks up at the grey clouds in the sky, he bounces his new son gently in his arms and everything feels like a beginning.

* * *

_I kind of getting the feeling that ending is super cheesy and I've gone a bit comma-crazy in this fic. Relieve my anxiety and review letting me know? You get your very own kitten if you do! (No you don't. I need to stop promising these things. Please still review :3)_


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